This report is produced as follow-on work to the Green Food Project, which focused on sustainable consumption and production. The Green Food Project report in July 2012 concluded that follow-on work was required to enable a broader and more sophisticated debate around the roles that diet and consumption play in the sustainability of the whole food system.

Livestock, domestic animals raised for meat, dairy and eggs, is responsible for 14.5 percent of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.  Because of the scale of its contribution, mitigation of emissions from the livestock sector must be addressed in order to avoid an average global temperature rise of more than 2°C compared to pre-industrial times. 

This paper shows that egg consumption may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. Earlier research has shown links between lifestyle habits, such as exercise and nutrition, and a reduction of the disease but this study has showed that egg consumption was associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes as well as with lower blood glucose levels.

In a recent brief for the UN Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR) a group of researchers, including Tara Garnett of the FCRN, proposed that well-designed policies targeting the demand for particular foods could simultaneously improve the health of the global population and achieve environmental sustainability.

This paper focuses on the governance of food supplies and specifically discusses the increasing policy focus on engaging food industry in the international pursuit of sustainability. The researchers also look at policy actions aimed at achieving sustainable consumption and production of food.

This study argues that government biofuel policies rely on reductions in food consumption to generate greenhouse gas savings. It looks at three models used by U.S. and European agencies, and finds that all three estimate that some of the crops diverted from food to biofuels are not replaced by planting crops elsewhere. About 20 to 50 percent of the net calories diverted to make ethanol are not replaced through the planting of additional crops.

Food Navigator highlights new data Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) recent Food Price Index, which measures the monthly change in international prices of food commodities.

This paper estimates that global use of antimicrobial drugs in animal farming is anticipated to rise by 67% by 2030, due to increasing demand for animal products and a shift towards more large scale intensive systems of production. It argues that a range of measures need to be taken in order to address the negative impacts of this growth.

The China Meat Association (CMA) is now calling on the Chinese government to actively support the beef and lamb sector. Prices for beef and lamb have increased more than 10% in the past decade, fuelled by China’s runaway economic growth. As Chinese consumers’ income and standard of living improves, demand for red meat has grown.